Flailing
by Autumn Skys
Summary: When guilt and pain are overbearing, there is more than one escape route. But for Minako, there is only one.


Minako walked along the snowy sidewalk, her long hair blowing slightly and her feet dragging

Minako walked along the snowy sidewalk, her long hair blowing slightly and her feet dragging.

The snow seemed all too bright; the street lights made it sparkle, and her brain just couldn't seem to handle all the brilliance of it.

For the moment, she felt like an empty hole. Words, feelings, emotions – they passed through her as if it were just air, and she ignored the sharp pains every time someone's concerned face appeared in her vision, or when someone lay a hand on her arm to let her know that they were there. But now she couldn't remember the last time she ate, and she hadn't even gotten hyped up on Mountain Dew for the longest time.

Her stomach gurgled unpleasantly, but she ignored it. She had never felt so hungry, so empty, and so alone ever in her life. Didn't anyone understand anymore?

She nearly fell into the wall then, as she missed a step and fell sideways.

She was dead drunk.

It had been the only way to take away just some of it, for a little while. Somewhere, before she had even begun, it had registered to her that her breath would smell and she would act like an idiot and be angry with herself.

Then, she hadn't cared.

She had downed one after the other, pouring them down her throat as fast as she could take them. It had sizzled down her throat, leaving a trail behind it, and she could feel it as she had chugged it. Reminding her of a snail's goop, she had downed the next one, sometimes varying what she chose to drank.

Sometimes she wanted to think of those happy times, with her kitten, with her pet rock, with her friends…

The pain was coming back in waves, refueling her feelings, taking away the numbness as the loss overcame her senses. Sharp stabs of pain, like daggers, seemed to pierce her skin as she thought about what had happened, what she couldn't prevent, what she had helped occur.

"_Minako, it's your fault!" _

Letting out a strangled cry, there was a moment's dilemma as Minako wondered whether to head back to the bar where the nice owner had let her sleep or keep going to her destination. Covering her head with her arms, she ran.

She was blind as she ran, not caring to follow her sense of direction, but letting her heart tug her along.

Her memories were coming back in sharp images…

How she yelled at the girls.

Threatened to kill her self.

Gotten drunk.

Kissed some guy in the closet before Motoki had found them…yelling at her, yelling at her about her lack of respect in their relationship…how he had cruelly dumped her…

And then it had happened.

An explosive moment; metal hit metal and created fire; fire met water and sizzled down, barely anything but ash.

A repetitive cycle, Minako now understand. Her life would repeat, worries and challenges coming along, never leaving an ounce of breathing space –

"_Minako, there's been an accident…" _

"_What?" her voice squeaked with panic as she replied._

"_Minako, Rei and Usagi got into a car accident…" _

Her heart beat faster in her head, the hangover making it seem worse, her feet pounding the ground seeming like a troll's stomps, her heart like a hammer at a carnival game. Sharp nails pricked her skin; her own nails, she realized. They were leaving half-moons in pales, and she realized she was still wearing just a t-shirt, in the middle of December.

She knew Usagi had had a secret. She knew she was going to tell Mamoru this Christmas…

But now it was Christmas Eve, and Usagi wasn't going to be there.

"_Minako, you can't run away from us! You're spending the weekend and Christmas with one of us whether you want to or not!"_

"_Seriously, guys, I don't want to…" Minako complained against Rei's words, her arms crossed defiantly across her chest. _

"_We're coming to pick you up right now!" rang Usagi's voice, and the phone clicked before Minako had the chance to say anything else. _

She felt so guilty.

If she'd just said "yes", she would have driven herself, and none of this would have happened.

She tugged at her orange tee's neck, suddenly feeling as if it was too warm, although it was only twenty degrees and she had no sleeves, and it was snowing.

Minako sometimes felt as if the only thing that had kept her going was poetry. When Rei was too busy with her fiancé, or when Usagi was to busy with her husband, Minako had spent time just writing; about angels, and how she wished she had one.

It was no mystery to Minako. She knew she had no angel. If she had, it would have swooped down upon her and saved her when she was still innocent.

She had darkened.

Her angel had turned to dust and been swiped away by something bigger, whispering her name as it fell away, mixed in with Earth's waters, leaving Minako with nightmares and an empty apartment.

Her cat had helped fill up the space, but it had died…just fallen one day when she came home, to old to hold itself up anymore. Reminding herself that everything died eventually, she'd pushed on, not letting herself shed a tear as much as it hurt and bottled up.

Now the guilt and sadness gathered up inside her and wrestled with her insides, fighting to come out somehow but not knowing the exit.

Tears rolled down her cheeks now, thick ones that obscured her vision.

Motoki.

"_You have no respect, Minako! You can't expect me to sit here and watch you while you kiss some other guy! Even if you're piss drunk, I can't take it anymore. It's over. Gone."_

_He stomped away, glowering, leaving her forever. _

Weeping now, her frame frail and her body shaking, she collapsed to her knees in the snow. Her knees going wet through the jean material, her shoulders twitching as she cried, knowing what she was about to do.

She had reached the church – the church she had grown up to know this is where religion was, but the one she had never really visited, learned to love.

There was the window, the stain glass window that wasn't quite anything but something that Minako felt resembled her life.

A tiny pane of yellow in the corner, followed by a wide expanse of blue, a sliver of yellow, and another corner of blue.

Blue – sad, frightened, angry, suicidal – all the emotions she felt every day, and at that very minute.

When she had tried cutting, and then the sharp objects had gone, been taken away by her father.

An overdose on sleeping pills, but had only taken two before Rei had snatched them away and told her just to take two or she'd be unconscious.

Trying to hang the belt on the ceiling fan before her mother had barged in, screaming her head off.

She reached out to touch the window, her fingers dragged down as she cried, leaving wet marks from her snow-soaked fingers, screeching like a dulled nail on a chalkboard.

The cemetery was just beyond there…

They had been buried in the church cemetery, just beyond. The church's cemetery was where they lay, where they had grown up along with Minako, bits more attentive but possibly just as far away.

She pushed herself up off the glass, giving it one last look before she headed to the cemetery's gates, pushing it open with a loud creak.

"_What happened?"_

"_They were going out to pick up Minako…" _

Minako wiped away her tears, now feeling the cold pinching her arms as she trudged through thick layers of fluffy snow, as she weaved along the path that she knew was right, that she had been to one day to come to a wake.

But now she was alone. Now, they were gone, leaving her in the dust as they lay below the ground, peaceful for eternity as she stood there shaking cold and alone and not drunk anymore.

She fell to her knees, crying for all she was worth, crying for the little life she felt she had left in her. Grasping around empty air as if it was them, trying to bring them closer to her, even though they were weren't there.

"You left me…" she felt harsh tears prick the backs of her eyes, even as she slammed her fist on the cold ground. "But I have no one to blame but myself!"

Her voice echoed through the empty graveyard, echoing at her from each angle.

She reached out to touch each gravestone, fingering the engravings she could not see as the tears swarmed her eyes. She knew it said just a week ago on them…so how could it feel so long ago?

"_We lost her."_

"_The other one is still alive, but it's weakening. We've done everything we can."_

"_Which one did you lose?" Mamoru was yelling, panicked, his voice hoarse from so much yelling and crying, even though his words had indented into Minako's brain long ago. _

"_Chiba Usagi, sir, we're very sorry."_

_Time froze as Minako's brain swirled and her eyes blurred._

"_No," whispered Mamoru, collapsing to his knees as his hands covered his face. "No…no, no, no, no!"_

_His voice rebounded through the room as Minako stood there awkwardly._

"_Sir, we'll do anything we can to help. We know it isn't easy to lose a mother and a child in one instance." _

Gasping, Minako grasped tighter, pulling onto invisible support ropes as she thought about the crashing moment when Usagi was lost…when Mamoru himself became lost.

"I miss you so much." Minako consoled herself, arms wrapped around her own shivering body. "I…I just don't know what to do anymore."

"_Child?"_

_Minako's world froze, as Mamoru's voice became a harsh whisper._

"_Minako," came Mamoru's hoarse voice, and Minako shut her eyes tight. "She was…Usako was…pregnant?"_

_Minako gulped. "Mamoru, I'm so sorry!"_

_But now Mamoru was howling, overcome with grief…_

"Usagi…I'm so sorry…about your baby!" cried Minako, sitting down on the snow. "It all happened so fast…I want you to forgive me! Please, you have to forgive me!"

The wind howled for a moment after Minako's screamed plea, but nothing answered her.

_The beeping came surely but quickly, doctors rushing out, pushing Minako out as she held Rei's hand and cried over her still, pale form – telling Rei about Usagi, about Usagi's baby, about how they were no more. _

"_Quickly, she's dropping!"_

_Minako's heart plunged as the beeping slowed and slowed…_

_No miracles happened, as the line became one, no more beeping filling the room._

"_Damn it," swore the doctor, throwing his glove on the table and blinking peculiarly.  
_

_Minako's world swirled, and she thought of Mamoru, broken in the waiting room…_

_The doctor's partner sighed, shaking his head. "It was a lost cause. They were bashed up bad. Flyaway car, drunken speeder on the road…pushing them right into a building. That car resembled an accordion, Marc. It's just remarkable they didn't die instantly."_

Minako clenched the snow in her hand, before settling down in the snow on her stomach, in between Rei and Usagi's graves.

"I'm sorry," said Minako in a whisper, silent tears now falling down her red cheeks. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, I'm sorry I couldn't…do much of anything. I'm sorry I'm leaving here…but I want to be with you both. It's…too lonely here."

The wind whistled past her, blowing her hair out of her face to let the wind pinch her nose and face.

"I'm sorry, but I'm doing this for me."

Minako closed her eyes and let sleep overtake her, letting the snow become her eternal blanket.


End file.
